2008 Review of Contractor/Construction Accounting Systems

As I’m sure you’re aware, the construction industry has its own
unique set of features deemed as necessary. Those requirements include strong
job cost functionality, the ability to track job cost expenses (including labor
and overhead) and the need to keep a close eye on job budgets to ensure profitability.
Every product reviewed here contains a job cost module or function in some capacity,
with some being more comprehensive than others.

Other features and functionality a construction company may look for include
an Inventory module to track materials, a scheduling board for sending out service
technicians, the ability to track liability and workers’ compensation
insurance, and an equipment module to track usage and maintenance.
The type of business your client runs — construction, contracting, home
repair, HVAC, plumbing, etc. — will make a big difference in what program
you should recommend. Smaller companies or those just starting out would do
well on an entry-level product.

While such products may lack many of the features found in larger systems,
they are often priced for companies that might not be in a position to make
a large software investment, and the company usually doesn’t have a need
for those advanced features anyway. Those with more established businesses would
do well to search out a more sophisticated product that contains more of the
features that will likely be needed down the road, even if they have no use
for such features in the short term. This review considers the following six
categories:

Learning Curve/Ease of Use — When looking to implement
new software, this may be the area that many business owners and managers will
look at first, simply because excessive training time means loss of productivity.
How quickly can they have the product up and running? Is it easy to navigate
or is significant training time required? Is there a sample database included
with the product?

Modules & Functionality — While some of the products
reviewed here are all-inclusive, the majority of them are modular in structure.
What that means to your client is that they can actually add on modules as needed,
which results in a more flexible product and eliminates the need for numerous
third-party applications. However, third-party applications can prove to be
important, as well, because they can significantly increase functionality in
areas that may not be addressed by the core construction accounting product.

Productivity Tools — This area can prove to be especially
beneficial to the construction company owner who is frequently shuffling paper.
Productivity tools such as organizational tools, at-a-glance reports and document
management can reduce the time spent processing paperwork, increase the time
spent to grow the business’ customer base and enable more efficient scheduling
of service calls.

Import/Export/Integration — Can your client import information
from that new estimating program? What about timesheets to attach to labor and
expense reports? And most importantly, does the product work with existing products
and processes the way it needs to?

Reporting — Reporting is always an important area no matter
the industry. But a good reporting system should allow for the export of data
to a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel, and it should offer a decent
number of standard customizable reports and utilize third-party report writers
such as Crystal Reports. The product should also allow reports to be easily
e-mailed and converted to PDF files with the click of a button.

Support & Training — Since you’ll only know how
good the support staff is when you need them, this is a difficult area to asses
in a review. However, it is important to know the support and training options
available so that’s what this section provides. Although some of the products
reviewed here require little training, others will require a considerable amount
of time for training.

Relative Value — This section basically assesses the price/value
equation. Obviously, a product that falls on the high end of the pricing scale
should provide many more features and options than a product that falls on the
lower end of the pricing scale. But does it?

Every business will have different must have’s, which makes it difficult
to determine the true value of each product based solely on price because a
product’s value is relevant to the business’ needs. A visit to the
product website will usually answer many of the questions a business might have
as well as provide an opportunity to request a demo.

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